two great movies:
the holiday - kate winslet, jack black, jude law, cameron diaz. (NOT the queen latifa.)
stranger than fiction - will ferrel, emma thompson, dustin hoffman, AND queen latifa. (ha.)

the holiday:
not filled with swearing, mass amounts of nudity/sex, and it wasn't full of lame holiday cliche things you would normally find filling movies like that. kate is fantastic as usual, and jack is hilarious. cameron diaz actually is pretty adorable.. and my most hated annoyance, jude law...
well... now he's perfectly redeemed. his character was amazing, he did a great job acting it out, and even though i dislike his real life romance drama with him cheating on the beautiful sienna miller with the not so beautiful nanny.. i suddenly find myself liking him and respecting him as an actor. odd. and annoying. anyway.. it was a great movie. finally girls are standing up for themselves when they have jerkface boyfriend/love interests. (boys are doing their part as well.) plus there are scenes that make you fall in love with every character. the emotion was great.

stranger than fiction:
not filled with swearing, mass amounts of nudity/sex, and wasn't a comedy. just in case the trailer threw you off like it did me. there were a few like 'sex scenes', but more along the lines of leading up to sex. nothing horrible or like completely distasteful and unnecessary. really evolved storyline. i was a little confused and uncertain as to my final opinion of the movie. and now i'm fairly confident that i really liked it. although, i am still left in a daze of confusion and my mind is completely out of sorts. i'm not sure the conclusion had a resolution to the chaos lingering in my subconcious. i want to cry, and it's quite annoying because i'm not sure why.


about that crying thing though..
i just think i haven't cried in a while. and my emotional psyche needs it. i think the VA Tech massacre actually affected me more than i figured it would. i'm not going to write about this a whole lot, just because people have said everything. 'it's tragic.' 'it could have been my family, my friends, or me.' 'i'm so sorry to everyone.' and while i mean and say all those things.. it just hit me unexpectedly hard. i think the concept of death evolves as we grow older. eventually you have to make peace with it. whether or not that comes in your twenties or your nineties is up to you. death is inevitable. i was just taking a shower yesterday and i thought, "they won't take a shower ever again." and i know it's quite the odd thought.. but it was enough to get me to almost start crying. life is precious and life is sweet. every day needs not to be wasted. every second, every moment must be lived full and gloriously. whether that means in pain, in joy, in sadness, in frustration, experience everything. every emotion, every situation, every thing you've always taken for granted. i know it's cliche, and i know it's trite. and i know that in a few months we'll forget. we'll go about our lives as usual. we'll take our showers in the mornings just like we always did because we always expected them to be there. we expect tomorrow to happen. we expect every second to happen because it always has. but someday, maybe even soon, those seconds will stop. time for you will come to a standstill.
i always get frustrated when people say things like "where was god when all this happened?" or "if he really existed, he'd have let them live." as if death suddenly extiguishes god. (forgetting that jesus conquered death a few days back a thousand years ago..) people forget that we are not promised to have our lives end at 70. we are not promised a day in our entire lives. we could have died in the womb, we could have died as five year olds, we could be dead tomorrow. and somehow, this is god's fault. why is it that as humans we forget that, not being god and not fully understanding god, that he doesn't have to play by "our" rules. is it sad that people got murdered unnecessarily? yes. it's very sad. is it god's fault because he didn't stop it? no. we have free choice. we have the ability to murder people if we want to because we have free will. i'm not saying god can't avert tragedy if he wants to. and i'm not really one of those 'everything happens for a reason' type of people. bad things happen because there is sin in this world. because mankind is dark and because behind this world there is a one of far greater darkness. sin entered the world, death entered the world, sadness and grief entered the world. and because of this and because of the free will that we were given by a god that so desperately wants us to love him out of our own accord there is a choice in all of us to do what is right, or what is wrong. good or bad. life or death. and it is not our place to question god's when bad things happen. he is a holy and he is a just god. he will deliver punishment to those who need it. we might not see it in action right away, we may never see it happen. but we can know that justice will happen, and that one day, justice will come to us all.

i was wondering earlier, that if i died.. would i be okay with it? as if i had a chance to 'do it all over again'. i'm fine with everything. i hold no regrets save for that i wish i loved more, hated less, built others up instead of tearing them down, and walked in love and truth and peace more than i did. but overall.. i could die in the next five seconds, or five minutes, or five hours, days, months, years, decades and be perfectly okay with it. sure i would have loved to go to places i wanted to see, and done the things i wanted to do.. but in the end, aren't those just shadows of what really needs to be accomplished? as if god gave us life so we could see the italian countryside, or so that we could get married and have a beautiful child. somehow as humans, besides thinking we're entitled to life, we also believe it is our right to do the things we want to do. i am here on the earth and suddenly i have this overdeveloped sense of being that i matter and that i am consequential.
by no means. i am the smallest speck of dust in the thinnest vapor. do you know why we do good works? to thank god for the life we have. because we will never ever measure up the return of what christ did for us, so we devote the life he saved back to him in utter surrender.
why is it so hard for people to surrender? to give up what is not rightfully ours somehow has become this great task. why is that? when did that happen? i can only hope that the things i do in return for what was done for me will make god happy. i know i'll never measure up, and it's not one of those 'i'm too bad for grace' type of issues. all my heart and soul and mind cannot even contain the beautiful anticipation of meeting my savior face to face and having him tell me i did a good job. on that day i will weep for joy and sing endless praises. i understand paul's fervor in wishing that the last day of his life would come soon, but fully knowing that more work had to be done. my heart aches sometimes for the glory that is to come. praise be to god for all that he has done in me and all he is doing. it is by no means my own thoughts and desires that have me feeling this way.
i really enjoy the peace prayer of st. francis:
lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

grant that i may not so much see
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


the book i've been devouring is called "god is here" by steve case. it's $5.99 at relevant right now, so click that link to buy it. it's really, REALLY great.
anyway.. i didn't mean to preach there.. i just spilled the thoughts that have been locked up in my mind for days. and i feel at peace. i no longer feel out of sorts. just.. peace.
i like that.
anyway, leave a comment if you will. or don't. whatever.


"light up, light up, as if you had a choice." - run, snow patrol.